Scenario: I am leaving a dentist appointment, stuck in Atlanta stop and go traffic when suddenly my clutch and brakes become sluggish. The temperature gauge is not moving past center but something is clearly wrong. Eventually the ECM fail safe kicks in and starts to disable the car and I had to rev it up enough to get to a side street. After checking I find that one of the cooling fans, the AC one, had stopped working. Allowing the car to cool, I then drove home, sans AC. As I tested systems driving down the highway, the cruise control light would light but the "SET" would not come on nor would it engage.

The switch was not a problem (I presume) as I had just purchased it two weeks ago and it worked fine before the incident. Now the question is whether or not the engine heat damaged the cruise control or what is the problem exactly. Is there a relay for it that may have become overloaded? If so, I missed it. Any insights would be welcomed. By the way, I bought and installed a new fan and disconnected then re-connected the switch and still nothing. Rather than go to a dealership I will live with whatever I can't do myself.

 

Either one are engine killers, don't concern yourself with the cruise control! Over heating is one area you must address immediately even if you must have your G towed to your mechanic or Nissan!
Gary

 

Thanks, Gary but I didn't let it overheat enough to blow a head gasket or anything; in fact after the car cooled down I could drive it home, 40 miles or so no problem. After I installed the new fan I test drove it and it ran great, just no cruise control. I have rev control as it is a manual and rev is always set. I just need to know what the problem is with the cruise control now not working.

 

I had a situation where my car was overheating a few months ago due to my replacement cooling fans seizing up on me. I had no choice, but to drive my car at that time. So, I spent a few days in 90+ degree weather with the heat on full blast or driving faster than I needed to or taking an extremely long way home, but kept me moving longer due to less traffic. On two occasions I did have my electronics act extremely weird it was not my cruise control. But, my odometer, speedometer, and a few other things seized to function. So, I have about 40 miles on my G that is not accounted for on my odometer. So, I would say yes the extra heat can cause some things to act kind of squirly...I replaced my bad fan and car is running great now and none of those problems have returned. I would break out the FSM though and follow any troubleshooting steps it has.

 

Once you get that overheating figured out you can look into replacing the clock spring/spiral cable. I lost the use of cruise control and shortly after my horn stopped working. I think even the lights on the controls didn't illuminate. Replaced the clock spring and got everything back

 

The repair manual tells you just about nothing about the cruise control. I came to the forum initially when it was intermittently working and someone else had the problem, fixed by a new switch. Now there appears to be something else. The scan tool doesn't show a system failure. I can live without it but boy it is sweet on long drives. I just don't want to go to the dealership since their agenda is money, not solving your problem. They will solve it but it always seems to be more money than it seems to be worth. I can live without it if the alternative is 1000 dollars to fix it.

 

Take it in to Nissan, they normally charge 30% less than our Infiniti stealerships! Not only is it nice to have cruise control on long drives, you'll save a lot of $$ on gas using it...fact!
Gary

 

You say the brake and clutch went 'sluggish' - do both pedals still retract to the top of the stroke? You cannot set cruise control if the 'clutch engaged' switch is not activated at the top of the pedal stroke (I know you said you replaced it so you're probably well aware of this, just making sure haha)

 

Yep, but I wonder if one of those two switches on the brake pedal is bad. One may be sending a signal to the PCM that the pedal is depressed. I have read that this is a fault that the PCM doesn't store and doesn't trigger a code. I guess I'll just have to take it to a Nissan dealership and see what they say rather than throwing parts at this.

I was wondering what could possibly happen to the clutch pedal switch; could it be bad after 2 weeks or just in general (Standard/ aftermarket) I could buy a genuine Nissan switch but its more likely that the switch stops working due to wear more so than anything else...I'm no electrician so maybe it could. I may try that first.

 

You can get a multimeter at harbor freight for way cheap even free with purchase if you can find the right coupon sheet (nitrile gloves, shop wrags/towels are always useful).

Once you have one.. I'm no electrician either, but I'm sure there's a way to test it with a multimeter!

 

Turn it to the ohms/resistance setting on the lowest limit, usually like ,20 ohms or so.

Now hold a lead in each hand and look at the display on the meter. It probably says something like zero, or OL (out of limit) or something. This is an OPEN circuit

Now touch the two leads together, watch the screen display change to some decimal value or maybe 1. This is a CLOSED circuit.

When you unplug the clutch switch and use the probes on the ends of the wire you should see the meter change from open to closed as you depress the clutch pedal.

 

Problem solved: Like I said before, I was wondering if both the brake switch and the clucth switch were both bad. I had already replaced one and then the other and PRESTO, cruise control active! So before going to get it checked at the dealership, go that route first; they will probably do that anyway.

 

Test it first, but best of luck.

 

Working just fine after I changed the second switch. Moral? If your car is like mine and 13 years old, change both switches as sooner or later both will probably go bad. Doing that saved me $$$ in diagnostic fees plus parts.

 

I have literally BOXES of random parts I changed out early as preventative maintenance, they probably have a little life left in them and if I do suffer a random failure there's a good chance I'll be able to just throw in the original as a temporary fix.